


Scraps and scavengers

by Nary



Category: Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Genre: Civilization through snacks, Domestication, Food, Gen, Shapeshifting, Survival, Trust Issues, Worldbuilding, naming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23251888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: The first thing the dakti heard (after the screaming was over) was the click click of small claws on the hardened clay of the canyon floor.  It held still, waiting to hear something from its progenitor, Vareah: an order to come join her, to flee or to attack, but there was nothing.  For the first time in its existence, its mind was devoid of commands, of control, of anything that didn't come there through its senses.  Like the smell of burned flesh and the clicking of the sand-colored lizards that were emerging from cracks in the canyon walls, creeping closer to see if any of the charred bodies left behind were edible.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 45
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	Scraps and scavengers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheliak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheliak/gifts).



The first thing the dakti heard (after the screaming was over) was the click click of small claws on the hardened clay of the canyon floor. It held still, waiting to hear something from its progenitor, Vareah: an order to come join her, to flee or to attack, but there was nothing. For the first time in its existence, its mind was devoid of commands, of control, of anything that didn't come there through its senses. Like the smell of burned flesh and the clicking of the sand-colored lizards that were emerging from cracks in the canyon walls, creeping closer to see if any of the charred bodies left behind were edible. 

The groundlings who lived in this canyon had seemed like easy targets to the Fell. They weren't especially large or strong or well-armed. But when they had been attacked, instead of all standing there stunned or running for shelter like most of their targets did, these groundlings had gathered themselves together in a cluster, the smallest ones in the center and the larger ones around the outside. Then they had opened their mouths and a spray of liquid came from their throats, hitting the first wave of Fell. The dakti, near the back of the attacking party, had seen its fellows hesitate in momentary confusion at the substance dripping off them, which smelled oily and rancid, but then press onwards, cutting down the groundlings who were closest to them as they went. The kethel and progenitor moved down from above, herding the surviving groundlings into a tighter mass, only to likewise be met with a shower of the greasy liquid. _Eliminate them,_ the progenitor had told the flight, furious at this show of futile resistance. Then, from the center of the herd, one groundling burst out holding a flaming bundle of reeds, and threw it into the kethel's face. It was too late to get away by then - the fire caught instantly and spread over the entire flight. The dakti's left wing had been caught in the edge of blaze and it recoiled out of some half-understood instinct - to get away, to survive, despite the wails of the progenitor. It had scrambled backwards, practically stumbling into a crevice in the canyon wall and waited in the dark.

Now, some time later, it crept out, cautious and confused, only to be overwhelmed at the sight. The dakti clambered up onto a rock, scanning the scene - the remains of the rest of its flight and the groundlings, all dead together. It stretched its wings, trying to take off, but it found it couldn't fly. Its left wing was damaged too badly to extend all the way, too painful to take the strain of flight. It wasn't sure what to do, but it knew it was hungry. Some of the little sand lizards would make a good snack...

Once it had eaten its fill, it realized it had to leave. It felt wrong to walk away from Vareah, somehow, even when she was dead. But this place would attract bigger scavengers than the lizards once it got dark, and the dakti wanted to be well away before that happened. It clambered up the side of the canyon, feeling unusually small and vulnerable beneath the wide grey sky.

It rained that night, and the dakti had to find its own shelter for the first time in its life. Usually their progenitor would find someplace for them to stay out of the elements - the dwellings of whatever they'd most recently killed, or occasionally somewhere like a cave or a hollow tree. Although it would always be Vareah and her rulers who got the best spots, with the dakti and kethel fighting over what was left. The dakti didn't know what to look for, but it managed to find a narrow gap between some rocks where it could crouch, miserable but at least partly out of the rain. It had never spent a night alone before and every little noise made it jump awake, assuming that it was about to be eaten. It was almost surprised when the rain stopped and the sun came up the next day and it was still alive. Experimentally, it ate a few of the little green bugs that it found crawling under one of the rocks, but spit them out - they tasted like sickness. Hungry, it got up and moved on. It knew it couldn't stop moving for very long, or something would be bound to kill it, injured as it was.

It managed to keep going like this for longer than it would have guessed possible, even though it couldn't hunt properly. It kept out of sight, scrounging for whatever scraps of food it could find, moving a little further away from where its flight had died each day. It thought about them sometimes, but it felt distant now, almost like it had happened to some other Fell and the dakti had just been told about it. Sometimes it found small grass-living groundlings or burrowing creatures or insects that it could catch and eat, and that felt good for a little while, until the hunger came back again. It always came back.

Each day it tried moving its wing a bit more, even tried flying again, but it didn't seem to be healing. In a Fell flight, a dakti that was injured to the point where it couldn't fly would likely not survive - its fellows would turn on it the moment they sensed its weakness. Alone, the dakti still felt vulnerable, but at least there weren't other hungry dakti around, waiting for it to drop its guard. That was strange, but good.

One day, as it crept through the undergrowth, the dakti heard the sound of voices, heavy footsteps, and a repetitive, steady creaking. It froze at first, not knowing what the noise might be, and then realized it might be about to be discovered and sank down into a mossy hollow in the ground, pulling leaves and grass over itself and keeping perfectly still. It watched in astonishment as a group of groundlings, ten or more, moved past with a pair of huge furry beasts with thick legs and oddly spindly necks, pulling houses on wheels. The houses were hung with long strands of purple beads and white snail shells that clicked as they swung against one another. The groundlings didn't seem to notice the dakti, and as they walked by, not moving in any particular hurry, one of them tossed away some scraps of food it had been eating. 

The dakti kept very quiet, waiting until they had gone far enough away that it couldn't even smell the musk of the lumbering animals, and then scurried over to gather up the remains - some bones with a few shreds of cooked meat still on them, and some sort of soft white substance it didn't recognize. It devoured the bones, and then, curious but wary, nibbled a piece of the white material. It was dry and chewy and strangely delicious. The dakti wanted more of it, and those groundlings left a trail that was very easy to follow. If it kept far enough back from them, maybe it could gather up more of their scraps. It was risky, but the dakti was very hungry, and this seemed better than wandering aimlessly until either it starved or was killed by something. Besides, the Fell were used to living off of the leavings of other beings - though usually those leavings were their corpses. It waited a little while longer, allowing the distance between them to grow, and then set off to follow their tracks.

The next few days were good ones for the dakti. It didn't have to worry so much about catching food - the groundlings left lots of things behind them that it found it could eat, rinds from fruit and pieces of meat and bone and best of all, more of that chewy white stuff. It stayed far enough away from them, and downwind, so that they wouldn't notice it following them, but sometimes at night when they made a fire and sat around it singing, it would creep a little closer and listen, even though it didn't understand why they would make loud noise and bright light that might attract predators. It didn't know if it was a predator anymore or not. 

Gradually it began to be able to tell some of the groundlings apart, even as it kept its distance from them. There was a large one with mottled yellow skin that seemed to be their leader, often walking at the front of the group, helping guide the beasts, and there was a smaller blue-green one with long tendrils that came from its head in coils, who was the one who usually sang while they walked. There was a tall, skinny one with blotchy brown spots who, the dakti thought, couldn't see and usually walked with its hand on the shoulder of the one with an orange stripe down the middle of its face. And there was a tiny green one that often rode on the back of one of the wheeled houses, or sat on the shoulders of the big yellow one. The dakti thought it could probably take down the smallest one, but it was never out of sight of the others, and there were too many of them for it to fight. Besides, it was the little one who most often threw away perfectly good pieces of food. It would be foolish to take the risk of grabbing it for one big meal and lose out on so many smaller ones.

The dakti never slept very soundly, but it did have to sleep from time to time. It would usually find a hidden place to curl up and hope it wouldn't be noticed by anyone. Now that it was only travelling at the (slow) pace of the caravan, it didn't get as tired. When the caravan stopped for longer periods of time, like when the members would go out gathering or hunting for food, or would stop to wash themselves and their clothing in a pond, it would take the chance to rest. Its wing even felt like it was getting stronger, though still not strong enough to fly. 

On this day, it was hiding beneath a fallen branch, not quite sleeping but not quite awake, watching the way the light played through the gaps in the leaves that formed a sort of shelter over it, lulled by the buzz of insects that flitted over and around and in between them. A crunch of brush suddenly startled it into full alertness, and it held very still, barely even breathing, hoping that whatever was moving nearby wouldn't notice it. 

Through the leaves, it could see it was one of the groundlings. The tall, thin one, walking with a long stick that it used to feel the ground ahead of it and find where things like rocks and trees were. It said something, but the dakti couldn't understand most of its words, since it wasn't speaking Fell. Then it said a few words it could understand, in Altanic - "Food for you." It put a small bundle down on the ground. The dakti still didn't dare to move, in case it was a trap. Eventually the groundling said, "If you don't want to come out while I'm here, I can go."

The dakti hesitated, then peeked out from its hiding spot among the brush. The groundling couldn't see it, but it clearly heard the sound and turned its head towards where the dakti was crouching. "We know you've been following us. Eating our garbage. You don't have to steal. We have enough food to share."

Shifting into its groundling form, which it almost never used, the dakti tried to form words in Altanic to reply. Its own voice sounded strange to itself, being unused for so long. "I... not steal."

"No," the groundling said. "That's true. You never took anything that we hadn't already thrown away. Are you hurt?"

The dakti didn't know how it could tell, especially since it had shifted now and its wings weren't even visible. "No," it said, not wanting to admit to any weakness. 

"Well, if you were, there's a jar of silverbalm in there - good for wounds. Don't eat that," it added helpfully. "It's the stuff in a clay pot. There's also some roast meat and jafala-root, and three pieces of pichu bread." The dakti didn't know what all of those words meant, but it understood food and not-food things were in the bundle, and it crept closer. 

The groundling took a few steps back, giving the dakti more space. "We talked around the fire, and if you are alone and need help, you could come with us for a while." 

It still seemed like it might be a trap. The last time the dakti had gotten close to groundlings, the rest of its flight had died. Admittedly, they had been trying to eat those groundlings. But surely this group had to know what it was. Or if they didn't know yet, maybe because they hadn't seen it clearly, as soon as they found out, they would be certain to kill it. But the food smelled good, and it was very hungry. Since this groundling couldn't see it, the dakti risked darting forward, grabbing the pack, and swiftly retreating back into the brush.

"All right," the groundling said with a sigh, once it was again out of sight. "If you feel that way. But if you change your mind, we would welcome you." It waited a few more moments, and then walked away, its stick tapping and rustling as it departed.

The satchel was made of a pale red cloth knotted at the corners. Once the dakti figured out how to open it without just tearing it to shreds, it found inside a small jar, and skewers of meat intermixed with a soft orange starchy root, blackened at the edges by fire. And three - THREE - entire pieces of the soft white things - bread, the groundling had said. It ate one of those right away, in a single bite, then the meat and orange vegetables, and then the other bread pieces, more slowly, to savor them. 

It was full after that, and shifted back to its dakti form to consider the jar. It smelled strange, not bad, but the dakti was still wary that it might be poison. But the groundling had said not to eat it, which was a strange thing to say if it was trying to poison an enemy. It had said it was for wounds. The dakti got some of the sticky ointment on its claws and, stretching its injured wing, tried putting some of the stuff on the burned skin. It stung for a moment and it hissed, but then the pain began to ebb away. 

It wasn't sure what to do with the cloth, so it tied it around its neck, not wanting to just discard it. Then, full and satisfied and in far less pain than usual, it settled back down into its nest of brush and tried to rest again.

Over the next several days, the dakti followed the caravan more closely than before. Some of the pieces of food that were 'dropped' were like the ones it had received from the bundle - whole pieces, not scraps. The little green groundling perched on the back of the wheeled house even waved to it sometimes, when it wasn't careful enough about keeping out of sight. The dakti wasn't really sure what that meant, but eventually it tried waving back. The small one, who had been playing with picking the petals off a hand-sized pink flower, got very excited and hopped down, running around to the front of the caravan, and the dakti grew fearful that it was going to tell the others, so it retreated back to its hiding spot again. 

When it finally emerged, the caravan had moved on out of sight, but there was a pink flower sitting in the middle of the road, like the one the small groundling had been playing with. The dakti sniffed it, but it didn't seem edible. But for some reason it didn't want to just throw it away either. It tucked the flower behind one of its scales, where it stayed in place without sliding away.

The groundlings' caravan stopped that evening at a wide, grassy clearing full of thorny bushes of pale yellow berries, and they spent some time picking them before it got fully dark, storing them away in a large clay pot that they kept in one of the wagons. When they built their fire that night, and cooked their food, everyone had a big handful of the yellow berries alongside their usual meal. The food they left aside for the dakti also had some of the berries with it, and it crept closer than it had before, curious to taste them. It crouched a short distance outside the circle of their light, nibbling the food cautiously, and listening to their song. The berries tasted somehow sweet and sour at the same time. 

No one drew attention to its presence there, even though it was so near that they had to be aware of it. And the warmth of the fire, what it could feel from this distance, felt nice, so it risked moving a little closer, and then a little closer again. The smallest groundling gave a high-pitched squeal on seeing it, a sound that set the dakti's scales on edge. The singing came to a halt as the groundlings turned to look at it. Its instincts told it to either attack, or to run, but it did neither. Instead it held very still, watching to see what would happen next. 

"You can come closer," the brown spotted groundling said. "We won't hurt you. There is more food if you want it."

The dakti hesitated. It still wasn't sure it trusted them, but they hadn't harmed it yet. And they _did_ have food. It came a few steps closer. 

"What's your name?" the large yellow groundling asked, holding out a piece of bread with some melted goo on top of it. 

Only important Fell, like progenitors and rulers, had names. "Don't have one," the dakti said, reaching out to take the bread before stepping back a few paces for safety. The warm, melty substance on the bread was chewy and delicious.

"You like the flower and the handkerchief," the smallest groundling piped up, having gotten over its initial surprise. "We'll call you Pink - that's the color they are. And it's a good luck color."

The others made approving sounds. The dakti didn't mind the sound of the name, although it didn't really know why it needed one at all. But it seemed to make the groundlings happy, and so it crouched down at the edge of their circle and listened to them talk and sing. It didn't understand all of their words, but somehow it was comforting anyway. With warmth and a full belly, gradually the sound faded into the background and it fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [naryrising](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/naryrising) if you want to ask questions, make requests, or chat!


End file.
